Monsters Have Hearts Too
by cosima-maslany
Summary: One shot - Sometimes you have to fight for your love and be brave about it. Brittany never thought she would have to do it with this particular person: Alma Lopez.


"_Hi baby. Is everything okay?"_

"Yes, never better! Question... When will you come home?"

"_Is that Britt-" _Brittany doesn't hear the rest of it because Santana covered the phone's microphone but she's sure Santana was yelling at Kurt to shut up and stop trying to butt in her Brittany time._ "Sorry about that! I don't know, lady Hummel dragged me to a mani pedi as a make-up gift for, you know..."_

"The proposal fiasco."

"_The proposal fiasco, yes. But I'll be home as soon as I'm finished. Are you sure everything is okay? Did Wheels hit on you during Fondue for Two? Because if he did, I swear to God I'll-"_

"What? No!" Brittany smiles and lowers her voice a little bit. "Besides, we already discussed this and there's only one man I'd ever cheat on you with."

"_Britt, please. I might be Queen Lesbian in Snixxxtown but we both know I'd leave you for Justin Timberlake too."_

"I was just trying not to break your heart with the devastating truth." Brittany giggles and hears Santana smile in the other side of the line. "Just come home as soon as humanly possible, yes?"

"_Sure, baby. Half hour, tops."_

"Fantastic. I love you."

"_Love you more."_

Brittany turned off the phone call and looked down at her lock screen where a picture from their vacation in Hawaii was covering the whole thing. She brushed her thumb on Santana's side of the picture and blocked her phone, clearing her throat before turning around.

"She'll be here as soon as possible."

"Bueno."

"Uh, you can sit if you want to, you know? I mean, this house is as much yours as it is mine. Wait, no scratch that. It's more yours than mine." Brittany exhaled as if this had been like a punch in the stomach. Both Santana and her parents said she was welcome into their house as a member of the family and specially now after the engagement but somehow under the look she was receiving, she didn't feel as worth of it as before.

"Brittany. Cálmese, por favor."

"Excuse me?"

"Stay calm, por favor."

"Oh sorry! Santana usually speaks in Spanish but sometimes I still don't understand."

"It's okay. I'm going to sit down and you will sit beside me, you understand? Don't be scared or afraid, I'm not some evil old lady who's going to beat you with a chair. I could if you were my granddaughter and you had told me you were pregnant. But you're neither of those. So por favor, sit down and talk to me like the grown woman I believe you are."

Brittany felt the words on her tongue dancing around but whenever she opened her mouth to speak, nothing happened. So she simply nodded and sit down on the couch. About one thing Santana was right: her abuela really was a scary old woman.

* * *

><p>"Something happened." Kurt turned to face Santana but she kept staring at her phone and moving her head side to side. "I swear Kurt, I can feel it. Something happened."<p>

"Are you sure? Because the last time you said you felt something, Rachel ended up stuck in the fire escape stairs for half a day."

"Bitch got what she deserved." Santana flicked her hair to the side and smirked at the memory. "I told her to stay away from my coffee pot but she kept on drinking from it so..."

"You truly are the female incarnation of the devil." Kurt rolled his eyes and he knew Santana did the same thing. "In all seriousness, are you sure?"

"100%."

"Let's hope not, Santana. And I think it'll take only 10 more minutes for us to finish our pedi's."

"Ugh, can't we speed this up?" She asked and turned to Kurt to find him holding both hands against his chest as if she'd said the most offensive thing. "What?"

"Speeding up a pedicure? What kind of monster are you? Be quiet and enjoy it because if you keep complaining, I'll withhold any gifts coming from yours truly until your wedding."

"As if, Lady Lips. As if."

* * *

><p>Brittany swallowed what felt like a XXL sized meatball and looked down at her hands. Not 5 minutes had passed since she sat beside Alma on the couch but neither of them had said anything. She went over all the conversation topics she knew of but none seemed good enough to use with Santana's grandmother.<p>

"Do you love Santana?"

The sudden break of silence broke Brittany's chain of thoughts too and for a second she turned to ask Alma to repeat the question but she was scared of what the older woman could say so she tried her best to focus and remember it. If she loved Santana? Yes, obviously yes! More than she ever loved anyone else in the world. It sometimes felt like she had a burning iron inside her chest and other times felt like her heart was melting like chocolate under the sun but she loved how much her heart loved Santana.

"Brittany?"

"Yes! Of course! I do love Santana. More than anything." Brittany finally said, trying to abbreviate her feelings but still paint a nice picture of them for Alma to see.

"Good."

Silence filled the room again as Alma crossed her arms over her chest and Brittany drifted into her own thoughts again. She could understand why Alma had asked her that but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why she'd start a conversation that way. Maybe she was as scared as Brittany and didn't know what to do. Or maybe she was just being a grandmother and making sure her granddaughter was with someone who loved her and cared about her and would do anything for her.

But then again... If she just wanted to know all that, why did she break Santana in the first place? Because as much as Brittany loves Santana, and she does, sometimes that love can't cure the screams in Santana's nightmares or patch the wounds on her heart. And she tries. She tries so hard to be all there is to be for Santana, to take care of her when she forgets to take care of herself but there's always something that she can't fill: the void that Alma left in Santana's heart.

"Ma'am?" Brittany asked carefully, turning slightly to the side but just enough to face Alma. She took a deep breath and waited for the older woman to meet her halfway, which she did by looking straight into Brittany's eyes and damn that felt like she was burning through to the back of her head. "Can I ask you something? And please know I'm not asking this in a rude or overstepping way, I just want to know your side of the story."

And for a second there Brittany thought she had done something wrong and that Alma was going to leave or maybe hit her with the chair she mentioned before but the older woman just turned to face her completely. When she was about to reply, Brittany's phone vibrated on the coffee table, making Alma raise her eyebrow to which Brittany's lips curled into a small smile because she finally understood where Santana had picked up the annoyed eyebrow thing she did whenever something or someone interrupted her.

_We're leaving the saloon now and Kurt's taking me home first thing, baby. Seen you in a bit. Kiss_

Brittany didn't bother to reply and set the phone on the table again, turning to tell Alma the news. "Uh it was Santana, she's on her way." Alma remained quiet and Brittany started to think she had lost her shot at trying to connect with Santana's grandmother.

"I know what you're going to ask me but I want to see if you're brave enough to do it." Alma said with a glimpse of sadness in her voice and Brittany noticed, which just made her sit up straight as if hearing a smaller crack open on Alma's shell gave her the last piece of courage she needed to go through with it. Plus if Santana had been brave enough to declare her love for Brittany to her grandmother, Brittany would be brave enough to fight for that same love.

"Why did you do that to Santana? Don't get me wrong, I know that not everyone accepts homosexuality but... Santana is your granddaughter, and from what I remember, your favorite one. So why? Didn't you know it would break her heart in such a way that she'd never be able to sleep peacefully again? She was so scared..."

"Brittany..."

"Hell, she wasn't scared. She was terrified. And you proved to her that she should be terrified. That what she felt was wrong in every possible way. That her feelings for me were so wrong that she had all the right to have kept them hidden for that long."

"Brittany, por favor..."

"And you were lucky that you raised her in your own image because if it wasn't for that, she... She..." Brittany couldn't keep that thought because she didn't want to ever think about what Santana could've done but she kept going, she couldn't be stopped, not now. She cleaned the tears on her face and noticed she was standing up in front of Alma, who had one hand pressed on her chest above her heart and the other one completely clenched as if she was ready to smack her.

"Santana is the strongest person I've ever met because of you but... She also has the softest heart and if you only tried to get to that heart, you'd see that your granddaughter is the most beautiful human being you'd ever encounter in your life. And I'm not just saying this because I'm in love with her or because we're... she'll tell you that part later... but because it is true. I'm not just her girlfriend and I don't want to be just her wife when we get married some day in the future. I'm her best friend too. And I've seen Santana. In her good days, in her bad days and in the days she wants to burn this whole town down just because she can. I've seen every side of Santana and I still love her more than anything in this world. And my God, I would do everything for her. We might be young and all but it's true. I would. But there's this one thing I can't do for her... I can't fix the hole you left in her heart. I can't be that person. I tried, believe me, I did. I was there when she cried herself to sleep because of the things you said. I was there when she woke up screaming with nightmares because of what you said to her. And I was there when she tried to call you and you didn't pick up. I was always there. But... where were you?"

* * *

><p>"You have got to be kidding me, Kurt. And if you're not, I'll make it my top priority to ensure you have the worst possible life and that you're sent straight to the pits of hell once you die!"<p>

"I'm sorry okay? When we were in New York we took a cab or the subway everywhere and here I never figured this would happen."

"YOUR FATHER HAD A GODDAMN CAR SHOP!" Santana yelled while walking from her side of the car to join Kurt in the back where he was dueling with figuring how to take the spare tire out of the trunk. "How, just how... HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO CHANGE A TIRE?!" She yelled once more and Kurt shivered at every word.

He could try to explain to her again that he never felt the need to learn that art but she would scream at him again so he adjusted himself, tools he had no idea what for in his hands and cleared his throat. "Well, instead of using your voice to yell at me because I'm sure you do a lot of yelling when you're down there in your throne ruling Hell, you could call for assistance or walk home."

"Do I look like the kind of person who would just walk home? Do I?" Santana took of her jacket and threw it into the car before taking the tools away from Kurt's hands and placing them beside the tire in the trunk. "I can take the fact that you don't know how to change a tire and I'm trying really hard to take in that I might ruin my dress doing it for you but can you at least do something helpful and help me take it out of the trunk?"

"Here goes our mani." Kurt scoffed and regretted it immediately because Santana was looking at him with what he was almost certain were flames in her eyes. Both of them started to push the tire and eventually they managed to take it off the trunk and placed it beside the one they needed to be changed.

"Call Brittany and tell her we're going to be late." Santana said in a much nicer tone and Kurt almost felt like thanking her for that but it would probably bring back the flames to her eyes so he did has commanded.

"_Hello?"_

"Brittany, its Kurt."

"_I know it's you but why are you calling me? Is everything okay?"_

"Yes, we just had a uh, small misfortune along the way but we will be on our track as soon as possible."

"_Misfortune? Why did you lose a fortune?"_

"What? No, Brittany. I wish I had a fortune to lose. We just got a flat tire but thank God your fiancée knows how to change it." Kurt turned around and lowered his voice. "Although I should probably warn you that I may or may not have woken the spawn of Satan in her soul because she's being really feisty."

"I heard that." Santana said while she pushed the flat tire off its engine.

"I'm sure you did, dear." Kurt smiled and Santana replied by showing him both of her middle fingers. "And now she's being very mature with her fingers."

"_Wanky. Seriously though, you really did piss her off, Kurt. But thank you for warning me and now I think you should turn off the phone and go help her before she makes flames appear with her heels."_

"She can do that?"

"_Don't help her and you'll see. Tell her I love her. Thank you once again, Bye Kurt."_

"Will do Britt. Goodbye." Kurt turned off the phone call and rested against his car beside Santana. "She told me to tell you that she loves you."

"Thanks." Santana exhaled and got up, closing her eyes and breathing when she saw the black spots on her dress. "It's okay, Santana. Everything is okay." She said to herself and turned to Kurt with a smile. "Help me save the tools and the flat tire and let's move. Also, you'll pay to get this cleaned."

* * *

><p>Brittany handed Alma a cup of water and returned to her place on the couch. "Santana called and they had a flat tire but they're on their way now. Hopefully nothing more will happen." She said, with a small smile and looked over to Santana's grandmother. After she finished talking her heart out to Alma, the only thing she did was ask Brittany for a glass of water which the younger woman went to get right away and Kurt called while she was in the kitchen. Brittany hoped Alma would reply to her and that they could talk about it but she was scared she'd overstepped a line or talked too much.<p>

"Brittany..." Alma started and Brittany lifted her eyes to meet brown ones. "I've met many people in my whole life and I fought with half of those but... Nunca nadie tuvo el coraje de hablar conmigo de esa manera." Brittany furrowed her brow at all the Spanish she didn't understood. "No one ever had the balls to talk to me like that."

"Oh..." Brittany cleared her throat and sat up straight. "Well..."

"I wasn't finished."

"I'm sorry, I didn't meant to interrupt. Please keep going."

"You're very brave, Brittany. I remember when you and Santana would go to my house to do your school work and I could see the braveness in your eyes back then. But I never thought you'd grow to be _this _brave..." Alma took a sip from her water and Brittany started to feel that what was about to be said would change the course of her life, Santana's and Alma's. "I did that to Santana because I didn't know what else to do. She came into my house and made me feel uncomfortable with every word that came out from her mouth. My own granddaughter, blood of my blood, doing that to me. Una verguenza."

Brittany looked down at her feet, then back at the living room window, and wished with all her heart that Santana took a very long time to get home because if it was to listen to this, she would take the bullet for her fiancée.

"She should have kept that secret to herself. Closed behind her bedroom doors. I prayed for it to leave her body, for God to save my granddaughter because I wasn't happy to make her leave my house but I would do it if it meant that my family would be clean and safe from her sin. We all have secrets, and we're all sinners but Santana's sin would bring dishonor to our whole family and I'd be damned if I didn't do the best for my family. Even if it took pushing one of us aside."

The tears started to fall from Brittany's eyes right to the carpet. And she refused to look up to Alma. It was painful enough to hear what she was saying, much less look her in the eye while that happened. So she lowered her head, and focused on Lesbos and Hawaii and the time she spent with Santana away from everyone and everything. She focused on their walks on the beach by sunset, on how Santana made her run half a village just to kiss her, on the day she decided to only take photos of Santana and caught the most beautiful one of Santana wearing one of her shirts by their bedroom window with a full moon lighting the sky.

Brittany felt a sudden shift in the couch and Alma placed her hand on Brittany's back, which multiplied the tears and soft sobs started to leave her mouth too. Silence filled a room for what felt like forever until Brittany found the strength to look up from the carpet. She cleaned her face and looked back at Alma, who removed her hand from her back as if it had never been there.

"Why are you here then?" Brittany asked between the hiccups. "To tell her that? Because if you are, I'm going to do what I think it's best for _my_ family and kick you out of this house myself."

What Alma did next was what surprised Brittany the most. She started laughing. Not just simply laughing, no. Hysterically laughing. Brittany looked at her with her brow furrowed but Alma just kept on laughing. Why was she laughing?

"Oh Brittany, if only you were a man... I would've married you to Santana myself."

"I'm sorry but I'm 100% woman. And if I was a man, Santana wouldn't have liked me." Brittany said as if it was the most obvious fact in the planet.

"Yo lo sé... And no, I'm not here to tell her what I told her. I'm here because..."

Alma was interrupted by the sound of a key against the front door, followed by it being opened by Santana. Brittany's eyes moved to the door but she didn't get up and Santana looked from her fiancée to the person sitting beside her on the couch and back to Brittany. She dropped her bag and jacket, and kicked the front door closed.

"Abuela? What are you doing here?" Santana said while she walked towards the couch but didn't sit down. She crossed her arms over her chest and stayed behind the coffee table looking at her grandmother.

"I came to talk to you, Santana."

"Why? So you can disown me again? No, thank you." Santana scuffed and pointed to the door. "Door is right there."

"Santana, don't." Brittany's voice sounded almost like a whisper and she looked up at her fiancée. "Just sit down, please."

Santana stayed exactly where she was, with her hand still pointing to the door but she focused on Brittany's eyes and they looked red. She had been crying. Why had Brittany been crying? Santana knew something was wrong and now she cursed the minute she entered Kurt's car. She should've stayed home with Brittany.

"I came here because I talked to your father."

Both Santana and Brittany turned their eyes to Alma. Brittany because Alma finally said why she was there and Santana because she was not expecting that at all. She moved around the table and sit on it in front of her grandmother.

"What did you talk with Papi?" Santana asked and without thinking, she stretched her arm towards Brittany, tapping her knee softly. Brittany already knew what that meant and she was a bit reluctant to do it because Alma was there but at this point she didn't really care so she placed one hand above and the other under Santana's.

"He came to me yesterday and told me this story about my granddaughter being engaged. I couldn't believe it because 3 years ago, that very same girl came to my house to tell me she had feelings for another girl."

"Yea..." Santana felt the squeeze Brittany gave to her hand and saw her mouthing 'no' but that didn't stop her. "I think you should leave now."

"So it is true."

"Yes, it is true. I asked Brittany to marry me and she said yes. Here, see the ring?" Santana raised Brittany's hand to show Alma the ring despite her fiancée's attempts to move her hand away. "And no, we're not going to invite you if you keep being that icy bitch."

"Santana!" Brittany whisper yelled and gave Santana the look that could only mean she had crossed the line.

"That's too bad." Alma said and placed a tiny velvety box on the coffee table before getting up from the couch. Brittany had seen one of those before and she was 100% positive of what was inside it. And so was Santana.

"What the hell is this?" Santana asked and picked the box up to see Alma stop by the front door and looked back at her granddaughter.

"Now you want to know?"

"If it comes with an equal size of pity beside it, no, I don't."

"But I do." Brittany said and took the box from Santana's hand. What she had thought before was right, there was a ring inside it. If she had to take a wild guess, she would say it was the Lopez family crest ring because she was almost certain she'd seen Santana's father use one just like this but bigger and golden. This one was silver, smaller than the usual and had a huge black pearl. "Is this...?"

"Oh my god..." Santana exclaimed and covered her mouth with both her hands.

"Yes Brittany. It is." Alma said by the door and Brittany looked back at her, investigating the ring with both her hands.

"Why?"

"Ask Santana." Brittany furrowed her brow and turned to her fiancée, who waved her hand for Brittany to place the ring there, which she did.

"Abuela... I... I don't understand." Santana mumbled, too confused to form a proper sentence. She kept her eyes stuck on the ring and Brittany placed one hand in her knee. "Legend says that... Our family tradition requires that we pass the ring along to the next generation but grandpa loved abuela so much that he decided to start a new one so he made this ring especially for her to pass along too... Because he felt that they were partners and they should conquer by dividing."

"That's... What I always say to you." Brittany said even more confused than before.

"I know..." Santana quickly replied and looked up to Brittany. "That's why I don't understand."

"But wait, you have aunts too. Shouldn't the ring be with someone else?"

"I guess..." Santana shared Brittany's look of confusion and both looked behind the couch to Alma, waiting to see if she would say something.

"Like I said, your father talked to me..."

"Abuela, cut the crap okay? Just tell us what is going on, please." Santana's words may have sound harsh but she talked in one of the nicest tones Brittany had ever heard her talk to someone other than her.

"If you keep interrupting me, I'll leave the house Santana." Alma said and Brittany couldn't help but let out a small laugh because she had done the same thing before. Alma walked back to the couch and sat in the same place as before. "At first I didn't want to listen to him because he said he specifically went there to talk about you but he is my son and he shouldn't pay for your sins so I listened."

"I'm not enjoying the way this story is going." Santana scoffed and Brittany squeezed her knee. "Fine, I'll shut up."

"Thank you!" Both Brittany and Alma said, making Santana shiver for a moment.

"As I was saying before you rudely interrupted me... I listened to him and he told me things about you, about how he accepted the things in your life that you couldn't choose, like who you loved, about how you left everything behind to go after a dream... And he told me about Brittany."

"What did Papi tell you about Britt?"

"He told me that..." Alma's voice cracked a little and Santana held Brittany's hand, as if she was asking her fiancée to give her some strength. "Your father told me that Brittany reminded him of your Abuelito."

Brittany saw the tears forming in Santana's eyes as she was looked at the ones falling from her grandmother's eyes. She felt herself about to cry too but she swallowed it, held Santana's hand tighter and placed her other hand on Alma's arm.

"I had to see it for myself. So I came here. And dios mio was your father right." Alma turned to Brittany and held her hand. "That's why I want Santana to give you my ring. Because no one in this family was ever brave enough to face me like you did, Brittany. You are a very strong woman and the more I talked to you, the more you reminded me of my husband and all the greatness that he was. And... I don't think there's anyone in this world that can take care of my Santanita like you can."

"Wait..." Santana cleaned her face with the back of her hand, still holding the ring. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Yes, mi hija. I'm sorry it took me this long. Will you accept a poor old woman's apology?"

Santana didn't reply and jumped of the coffee table to hug her grandmother. She could now say that she was complete. That everything in her life had come into the right place. All she ever wanted was for her abuela to accept her and now she did. And more important than that, she loved Brittany too.

The Lopez women held each other very tightly but they broke the hug almost right away. Brittany rolled her eyes a bit because not even in this occasion would both leave their stubbornness aside and just give in.

"And Brittany, I want to apologize to you too."

"There's no need for that, ma'am." Brittany said with a smile on her face. She really didn't need it, whatever Alma was going to apologize for, she didn't need. All she wanted was for her to apologize to Santana and she did.

"Please, call me Abuela."

"Seriously?"

"Do you want me to beat you up with that chair until you believe it?"

"And there she is, the abuela we all know... and love."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Thank you to everyone who supported me and helped me find the courage to write this.

To Amy, because you're the most badass of proofreading to ever proofread.

And to Nina, please don't burn my house.


End file.
